The World Education Summit closed in London with a record $4 billion raised for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
This amount puts GPE on track to raise at least $5 billion over the next five years to transform education for millions of the world’s most vulnerable children.
A fully funded GPE would enable 175 million children to learn and help get an additional 88 million girls and boys into school by 2025.
This hybrid event brought together leaders from governments, businesses, private foundations and development banks who are committed to funding and supporting education for children in the world’s poorest countries.
President Faure Gnassingbé took part in the work in London.
These pledges follow last month’s commitment to girls’ education at the G7, where leaders pledged at least $2.7 billion for GPE and called on all donors to mobilize to fully fund GPE’s ambitious new strategic plan.
This amount includes the UK’s contribution of £430 million ($600 million). This is the UK’s largest commitment to GPE, making it the number one bilateral donor from GPE.
‘Funds raised at today’s Summit will transform the lives of millions of children around the world. The UK is proud to have contributed £430 million to the Global Partnership for Education fund and it is great to see other donors stepping up and contributing to the goal of ensuring quality education for every child,” said Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister.
In addition to the $4 billion pledged by donors, the President of Togo and several of his counterparts have pledged to devote at least 20% of their national budgets to education.
Over the next five years, countries endorsing this declaration are expected to commit $196 billion to financing education.
These commitments provide a critical bulwark against learning losses resulting from the economic impact of COVID-19.
The Summit was an opportunity for an unprecedented number of companies, private foundations and development banks, as well as a wide range of partners, to collectively commit to investing $1 billion through financing that provides partner countries with catalytic funds to complement GPE investments.
On the occasion of the Summit, companies and private foundations announced an investment of more than 100 million dollars, in particular thanks to innovative financing.
Two major new public-private partnerships have also been launched by economic partners, so that expertise in social marketing promotes the education of girls and that the strengthening of data systems allows the improvement of education results. These in-kind commitments represent more than $6 million.
